M. Amin Mir, S.S. Sawhney and Manmohan Singh Jassal
Taraxacum officinale is a very well known medicinal herb in Ayurvedic medicine since times immoral. The presence of various phytochemicals in the concerned plant in the form of alkaloids, flavonoids, and terpenoids made it efficient anti inflammatory drug. The inhibition of hypotonicity induced HRBC membrane lysis was taken as a measure of the anti inflammatory activity. The percentage of membrane stabilisation for dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, methanol and water extracts of the plant (Root, Stem and Flower) and Diclofenac sodium were done at different concentrations. The percentage stabilization of stem water extract was found to be highest, followed by methanol extract of stem. The root and flower extracts also follow the same trend as the stem extracts as per their percentage stabilization against inflammation. The percentage of stabilization was found concentration dependent in all the plant extracts, i.e., percentage of stabilization increases with the increase in the concentration of plant extracts. The polar solvents potentially show more stabilization potential against inflammation as compared to the non-polar solvents.
